From PGS at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Sat Oct 31 22:42:38 1987
From: PGS at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Patrick G. Sobalvarro)
Date: Oct 31 87 16:42:38 EST
Subject: DIR device
Message-ID: <278089.871031.PGS@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
^R dir:pgs; name2 @ doesn't get me a listing of the files on my directory
whose second name is @. This used to work, and NAME1 still does work.
From MRC at PANDA.COM Tue Oct 27 08:06:19 1987
From: MRC at PANDA.COM (Mark Crispin)
Date: Oct 26 87 23:06:19 PST
Subject: ITS outlives Multics?!
In-Reply-To: <275589.871027.GUMBY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <12345749289.8.MRC@PANDA.COM>
TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 both support 30-bit address spaces (although the KL
CPU only allows 23). Having written a large program using 30-bit addressing,
I can assure you it isn't as kludgy as its detractors claim, and certainly a
lot cleaner than some of the current faddish architectures.
I'm sure some bright hacker could figure out how to convert ITS to 30-bit
addressing.
-------
From GUMBY at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Tue Oct 27 07:30:27 1987
From: GUMBY at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (David Vinayak Wallace)
Date: Oct 27 87 01:30:27 EST
Subject: ITS outlives Multics?!
In-Reply-To: Msg of Mon 26 Oct 87 10:04:15 PST from Mark Crispin
Message-ID: <275589.871027.GUMBY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 10:04:15 PST
From: Mark Crispin
We'll need some new CPU's though. 36-bits are decidedly out of fashion
at Stanford, but perhaps there are some MIT VLSI hackers who might want
to make a PDP-10 on a chip?
But the 18-bit address space is a lose. Since you're making a new
chip or chip set anyway, why not double the word length? 36-bit
halfwords should keep people happy for a while. We could have more
registers, too.
From MRC at PANDA.COM Mon Oct 26 19:04:15 1987
From: MRC at PANDA.COM (Mark Crispin)
Date: Oct 26 87 10:04:15 PST
Subject: ITS outlives Multics?!
In-Reply-To: <275113.871026.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <12345606917.6.MRC@PANDA.COM>
That sounds good. I'm sure the ITS hackers in 2155 will be able to think
of something clever to solve the problem then. TOPS-20's date format
dies at the last 1/3 second of Wednesday, 7 August 2576 GMT (here on the
west coast, just before 5PM PDT), so we have almost 589 years to worry
about that.
We'll need some new CPU's though. 36-bits are decidedly out of fashion
at Stanford, but perhaps there are some MIT VLSI hackers who might want
to make a PDP-10 on a chip?
-------
From ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Mon Oct 26 17:58:03 1987
From: ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Alan Bawden)
Date: Oct 26 87 11:58:03 EST
Subject: ITS outlives Multics?!
In-Reply-To: Msg of Sun 25 Oct 87 13:59:55 PST from Mark Crispin
Message-ID: <275113.871026.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 87 13:59:55 PST
From: Mark Crispin
...
I was quoted in a trade journal as saying that PANDA/TOPS-20
will see the century tick. What about ITS? We're going to
have to do something about that sixbit date format, you know!
(I intend to continue using ITS into retirement...)
The SIXBIT date format you are thinking of (from the .RDATE uuo) is for
simple programs that want the date in MM/DD/YY format. I presume that on
January 1, 2000 those programs will want to print the date as 01/01/00, so
this isn't a problem.
There are two other date formats. The .RYEAR uuo returns the year as an
18-bit quantity, so that will work for quite some time. The other, more
common, date format is the one used by the filesystem, and by programs that
used the DATIME library; this is the format returned by the RQDATE system
call. This format packs the year, less 1900, in a 7-bit field, so this
will last through 2027. Since the bit to the left of the year field is
unused, we can easily expand this to last through 2155.
Probably the most we will have to do is fix a few user programs that have
the string "19" built into them.
From JNC at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Mon Oct 26 00:00:00 1987
From: JNC at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (J. Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon 26 Oct 87, 00:00
Subject: ML on the arpanet?
In-Reply-To: <275092.871026.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <12345590429.43.JNC@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Right; they are around $10K or some such fabulous amount.
The first one was one Marty bought and which got snarfed; I got
ACC to donate the second one.
If you want the other machine IP live why not write code
to run an Interlan Ethernet card or something? I gave JTW a Pronet-10
card; they are massively simple to program but nothing ever came of
it.
Noel
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From ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Mon Oct 26 17:18:20 1987
From: ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Alan Bawden)
Date: Oct 26 87 11:18:20 EST
Subject: ML on the arpanet?
In-Reply-To: Msg of Mon 26 Oct 87 02:22:12 EST from David Vinayak Wallace
Message-ID: <275092.871026.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 87 02:22:12 EST
From: David Vinayak Wallace
Since Multics is going away can we snarf its imp port?
Wouldn't do us any good unless we can find another LH/DH.
From GUMBY at MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Mon Oct 26 08:22:12 1987
From: GUMBY at MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (David Vinayak Wallace)
Date: Oct 26 87 02:22:12 EST
Subject: ML on the arpanet?
Message-ID: <316281.871026.GUMBY@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Since Multics is going away can we snarf its imp port?
From MRC at PANDA.COM Sun Oct 25 22:59:55 1987
From: MRC at PANDA.COM (Mark Crispin)
Date: Oct 25 87 13:59:55 PST
Subject: ITS outlives Multics?!
Message-ID: <12345387677.6.MRC@PANDA.COM>
I just got a message from the Multics postmaster saying that
MIT-Multics will be shut down on 31 December. Athough it was
inevitable it is still rather sad. I find it somewhat ironic
though that today, years after ITS was declared dead, there
are more ITS systems in operation (even excluding the part-time
systems) than ever.
I was quoted in a trade journal as saying that PANDA/TOPS-20
will see the century tick. What about ITS? We're going to
have to do something about that sixbit date format, you know!
-------
From ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Wed Oct 14 20:02:26 1987
From: ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Alan Bawden)
Date: Oct 14 87 15:02:26 EDT
Subject: Not to worry
In-Reply-To: Msg of Mon 12 Oct 87 21:41:19 EDT from David Chapman
Message-ID: <269232.871014.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 87 21:41:19 EDT
From: David Chapman
AI is getting frequent ECC corrected errors (one every few minutes) in
consistent places on the disk. Looks dangerous to me.
No worry. A block with an ECC error needs special attention every time it
is read. ITS doesn't try to avoid using such blocks, so sometimes we get
unlucky and a block with an ECC error gets used either in a file that needs
to be touched frequently, or as a swapping block. As long as it doesn't
become an outrageous waste of paper, there isn't any problem.
From JTW%MIT-SPEECH at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU Mon Oct 12 00:00:00 1987
From: JTW%MIT-SPEECH at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (John Wroclawski)
Date: Mon 12 Oct 87, 00:00
Subject: No subject
In-Reply-To: <268383.871012.ZVONA@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <12342034127.16.JTW@MIT-SPEECH>
From: David Chapman
To: BUG-ITS at AI.AI.MIT.EDU
AI crashed with BUGHLT Bad IMPOS, 2. I dumped to crash;bad impos2.
Booted OK.
This is known braindamange on my part related to the fact that I
didn't notice that someone called a particular TCP routine from clock
level when I wrote the IMP driver.
However, the machine should recover OK if you just $P it, rather than
needing to reboot.
-john
-------
From ZVONA at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Tue Oct 13 02:41:19 1987
From: ZVONA at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (David Chapman)
Date: Oct 12 87 21:41:19 EDT
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <268387.871012.ZVONA@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
AI is getting frequent ECC corrected errors (one every few minutes) in
consistent places on the disk. Looks dangerous to me.
From ZVONA at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Tue Oct 13 02:32:01 1987
From: ZVONA at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (David Chapman)
Date: Oct 12 87 21:32:01 EDT
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <268383.871012.ZVONA@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
AI crashed with BUGHLT Bad IMPOS, 2. I dumped to crash;bad impos2.
Booted OK.
From MRC at PANDA.COM Sun Oct 4 07:08:38 1987
From: MRC at PANDA.COM (Mark Crispin)
Date: Oct 3 87 23:08:38 PDT
Subject: The operating system that wouldn't die! AAAAIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!
In-Reply-To: <264420.871003.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Message-ID: <12339709477.6.MRC@PANDA.COM>
Well, you know, we have to start thinking about what will happen
when the century ticks. I'm determined that TOPS-20 on PANDA will
see it tick, which means fixing any bugs that have two-digit years.
The question is, how will ITS handle it?
I think it will be damn funny if our 36-bit "dinosaurs" just tick
the century and keep on smiling, while every Unix system in the
world crashes!!!
-- Mark --
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From AD0R at TB.CC.CMU.EDU Sun Oct 4 00:00:00 1987
From: AD0R at TB.CC.CMU.EDU (Cthulhu)
Date: Sun 4 Oct 87, 00:00
Subject: its on a ka10
Message-ID: <12339732358.19.AD0R@TB.CC.CMU.EDU>
It's amazing enough that they got the ka10 running. I think they've got all
core in that lovely machine. These are truly wonderful people.
-------
From ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Sun Oct 4 04:02:14 1987
From: ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Alan Bawden)
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 87 23:02:14 EDT
Subject: The operating system that wouldn't die! AAAAIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!
In-Reply-To: Msg of Fri 2 Oct 87 11:34:35 EDT from gls at Think.COM
Message-ID: <264420.871003.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 11:34:35 EDT
From: gls at Think.COM
To: bug-its at ai.ai.mit.edu
I just got my "Happy Birthday" message from Puff the Magic Dragon at AI.
Maybe I'm silly, but this has made me very happy today. It's nice that
someone cared enough to set up the software so I get a message every year.
(I think I am also affected by nostalgia for my days at MIT.)
--Guy
Well a message like this is certainly guaranteed to make -my- day! It's
always nice to have people appreciate creaky-but-reliable old ITS for still
being around after 20 years!
I thought I would take this opportunity to spread the word about something
that I don't think has been very widely publicized. Some of you may recall
that a while ago some fellows in Sweden contacted us about running ITS on
various PDP-10's that they owned? Well, we mailed them a set of tapes for
bringing up ITS on their 2020, which they were able to do without too much
trouble (their biggest problem was -my- fault). That all happened over a
year ago. Recently we learned that these guys have successfully -built-
ITS paging hardware for their KA-10, and have ITS up and running there as
well! Totally Amazing.
From gls at Think.COM Fri Oct 2 16:34:35 1987
From: gls at Think.COM (gls at Think.COM)
Date: Oct 2 87 11:34:35 EDT
Subject: Many thanks
Message-ID: <8710021534.AA06791@kali.think.com>
I just got my "Happy Birthday" message from Puff the Magic Dragon at AI.
Maybe I'm silly, but this has made me very happy today. It's nice that
someone cared enough to set up the software so I get a message every year.
(I think I am also affected by nostalgia for my days at MIT.)
--Guy